Thursday, December 18, 2008

A double-dose this week, as there are a number of recent impressive projects, and the preponderance of press picking up the terminology on the sub-genre of Veg.itecture. Also, recently, Landscape, The First Specialised Landscape Magazine in the Middle East was kind enough to publish my article, The"Veg.itecture of Ken Yeang". Check out the online version of the magazine here... and jump to pages 60-61 before checking out the rest of the great resource (and thanks to the editor Nada Abdel Khalek for the great opportunity to contribute to the mag!)

There seems to be the trend of lawn-covered rooftops. Perhaps this is the simple, low-height ingredient that satisfies the 'greening as a inert simple material' quotient. No questions about maintenance, yet. Another from Arch Daily is from the Los Silos Youth Centre by Lavin Arquitectos.

And a final one, tucked into a hillside with a lawn covered form, the ‘finca el retorno’ by g ateliers architecture (via designboom): "...designed as an ecological refuge focused on preserving the surrounding nature. to accommodate this mandate, the roof of the building was imagined as an extension of the ground." Grass...?